ONLY 26% of Malaysian organisations have adopted artificial intelligence to increase competitiveness, despite seven in 10 business leaders believing the move is instrumental to growth.

This was revealed in a study by Microsoft and IDC Asia/Pacific, which saw 100 business leaders and 100 workers polled.

In a report titled “Future-Ready Business: Assessing Asia Pacific’s Growth Potential Through AI”, IDC Asia/Pacific research director Jun-Fwu Chin said Malaysian businesses are “not yet ready for AI”.

“Malaysia needs to substantially improve its readiness. Organisations’ leadership should make it a core part of their strategies and develop an agile learning culture.”

The study found that companies that have adopted AI expect it to increase their competitiveness by 2.2 times by 2021.

Chin said AI adoption requires continuous investment, “sometimes, without immediate returns”.

He said businesses must “create the right organisational culture” to adopt AI, adding that key traits, like risk-taking and innovation, are not prevalent.

“Workers in Malaysia are more sceptical than business leaders when it comes to the cultural readiness of their organisations.”

The report said more than half of Malaysia’s business leaders and workers believe that AI improves performance and efficiency.

“Of those polled, 17% of business leaders believe AI will create new jobs, and 10% feel the technology will replace them,” said Chin.

“Workers are more optimistic, with only 7% expecting AI to replace jobs and 18% believing it will create new ones.

“Almost 11% of workers expect no impact on their jobs in the next three years.”

Microsoft Malaysia managing director K. Raman said AI is expected to increase employee productivity gains by 60%.

“AI will almost double the rate of innovation improvements in Malaysia.”

AI is typically defined as the ability of a machine to perform cognitive functions associated with the human mind, such as perceiving, reasoning, learning and problem-solving. – April 2, 2019.